Musk has star quality but hype doesn’t always deliver

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The online reaction of some Tesla shareholders to any criticism of Elon Musk or his company appears to display the sort of emotion that should make rational investors quakeCredit:
JOE SKIPPER/Reuters

Elon Musk is a world-class evangelist. The carefully-crafted cult of personality that surrounds the founder of electric-vehicle maker Tesla allows him to raise capital and enthuse investors in a way that most chief executives can only watch with envy.

His quest to send humans to Mars, his canny marketing of flame-throwers and his near-Trumpian Twitter attacks on critics have helped cement his personal brand as one of the world’s most-famous entrepreneurs. However, it can be dangerous for investors to get mixed up in hype. Profits and cash flow ultimately matter more than an exciting story being told.

One of the important rules of finance is to not get emotionally attached to any of your investments....